How much money can a band expect when a court rules that the flagship song from the fastest-selling debut in U.K. history sounds strikingly similar to a song of their own? If your band is Wire and the year is 1995, not a pence. That was the result of an out-of-court settlement that awarded no […]
Just imagine how complex Pinback’s lush melodies would be if Rob Crow only played in one band. If he didn’t have to split time with a tedious solo career or play with other bands over the years including but not limited to Thingy, Goblin Cock, Optiganally Yours, Alpha Males, Physics, and Snotnose, he might have […]
A lot of great music has been recorded since 1967. But until a fundamental shift in his own group only a few years ago, Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes hadn’t noticed. “[Barnes] finally began to listen to music made after 1967 about the time he was making [2004’s] Satanic Panic in the Attic,” Of Montreal […]
It’s a rainy Sunday night in Chicago, and about 2,000 people are filing out of the Belmont Arts and Music Festival. At 10 p.m., the two-day event on Chicago’s North Side has all but wound down. The vendors that range from local artists to restaurateurs have closed their booths. The auxiliary stage at the east […]
Scotland might be on the brink of a musical civil war…or at least a slight rethinking of the country’s sonic landscape. Although the famed Glastonbury Festival has long been a rock ‘n’ roll staple, the European host nation has for just as long also served as a hotbed for delicate twee pop a la Belle […]
When debating the best New Pornographers album, the biggest loophole in determining the most solid collection of near-perfect guitar-pop tunes has nothing to do with the Canadian outfit’s stellar four-LP catalog. Rather, it’s frontman Carl Newman’s 2004 solo album, which very well could trump his best group output. But in a live setting, his full […]
For all the backslapping and grandstanding during this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival, its “Don’t Look Back” segment — featuring veteran bands each playing one of their classic albums from front to back — missed two obvious performers. The occasionally re-united Dismemberment Plan could have rocked Emergency and I, but even more glaringly absent was the […]
There’s a built-in audience for pop punk, which is both the genre’s biggest asset and its biggest obstacle. There always will be angry teenagers, and a fresh crop of them turn over every few years — discovering power chords, hating curfew, having their hearts broken for the first time, and ultimately being the types of […]
If Eugene Hütz ever takes his eclectic band back inside dingy clubs, he’d be doing a disservice to festivals worldwide. Promoters need Gogol Bordello just as much as the gypsy punks need those large venues. The band embodies everything about open-air concerts, and does so knowingly and affectionately. Commanding Lollapalooza’s AT&T main stage less than […]
Atlanta’s Black Lips don’t play rock ‘n’ roll. They play rock ‘n’ tumble. Or rock ‘n’ flail. Or rock ‘n’ repulse. The bluesy foursome has built its reputation as much on the lineage of Nuggets and Mersey punk as it has on its disgusting stage antics. So when the quartet sauntered onto Lollapalooza’s Bud Light […]